


Break Me From This Rule

by Ghostcat



Category: You're The Worst (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Ableist Language, Best Friends, Blow Jobs, Boot Frottage, Cunnilingus, Drugs, Drunken sex, F/M, Getting to Know Each Other, Late Night Conversations, Lies, My First Work in This Fandom, One Night Stands, Post-Wedding Hook-Up, Theft, Underwear Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:10:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2639294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/pseuds/Ghostcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, five times Gretchen didn't lie to Jimmy (and one time he did). Featuring pretentiousness, sex fungi, feigned apathy, The Brontës, and pool ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from TV on the Radio's "Will Do"
> 
> Thank you to:
> 
> [SilverLining2K6](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverLining2k6/works) for reading this nonsense and reminding me about paragraphs and laughing at the right places.
> 
> [blithers](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blithers/works) for second reading something from a show she's never watched because she is _that_ baller.
> 
> [wagawriter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wagawriter/pseuds/wagawriter/works) for checking on my English-speak and suggesting scarper over scamper.
> 
> And [borncareful](http://www.borncareful.tumblr.com) for cheerleading.
> 
> All existing errors are mine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gretchen meets a guy at a wedding.

When Becca’s ex-boyfriend kisses her, it doesn't suck. It tastes like woodsy cigarettes and cake—praline and hazelnut. Or maybe coffee? Of course that bitch Becca would have the good stuff.

Gretchen needs to come better prepared to these things. Bring a much larger purse and some of those giant gallon-sized sandwich bags. She could stuff an entire week’s worth of food in those things, though she always forgot to put them in the fridge when she got home. Two or three weeks later, she'd wind up finding it during one of her recreational Ritalin-inspired cleaning jags; a green, lumpy mess swishing in plastic.

Her kissing buddy tilts her face with his fingers, deepens their kiss, and the image is forgotten.

He snaps his head back from hers, sighing grandly in a way that works when she’s buzzed. Which she is.

“Fuck.” He blinks once.

She stares at his mouth, he moves it way too much when he talks—it’s enunciation as offense. Her response is a slow afterthought. “What?”

“They kicked me out.” He peers back inside, moving his head in a clumsy attempt to look past the corners of the lobby.

“Yeah, for yelling at the bride. I thought you didn't care?”

His black tie is undone. Gretchen yanks it, and he weaves forward, brushing his lips on her cheek. He pulls on his jacket, straightening it out, as if that’s going to hide the wrinkles. Or the fact that it's so short it's got what her grandma used to call “The Frankenstein Fit”. She smothers a snort.

“No, of course not.” He grins meanly and licks his lips which are faintly stained with her lipstick. “Fuck their miserable, self-congratulatory farce of a wedding. It’s just that I meant to grab another bottle before leaving. Doesn't seem right that those bastards should have all that fine champagne and me none.”

He’s so pleased with himself, this rumpled, not-that-cute guy who got kicked out of a wedding for being a jerk and is flirting with her like none of those things are true. He's got lousy posture and okay teeth. She's going to wind up fucking him. Goddamn it.

“Wait here,” she says and walks back inside.

Gretchen hurries, a little. Not to get back to him faster, she isn't  _that_  desperate, but to avoid Lindsay, who sees her across the room and tries to wave her over. She mimes back  _stomachache_  and  _gotta run_ and  _bedtime_ , and scampers away, with another bottle of champagne snug under her armpit. Her contraband clinks brightly against her purse strap and she follows the cooler outside-air through the gilded doors, to the red carpeted sidewalk.

He’s still there, tying his sneakers, another cigarette dangling out of his mouth. He sees her and stands slowly, smiling. She holds up the champagne bottle, exposing the foiled neck, turning it this way and that so the silver catches the light.

“Ta-da!”

“Ooh, I like you,” he says, blowing the smoke away from her face.

“Most men do.” She reaches for his cigarette, does a quick boarding school French inhale, and puts the cigarette back in his mouth. Gretchen might have imagined it but she thinks she felt the tip of his tongue on her fingers as they touched his lips. “Now we have two.”

The other bottle of champagne that she'd been drinking from before stands placidly between them. He leans down to grab it and taps it against hers before taking a pull, wiping his mouth with his wrist in a careless sloppy way, lips bared, teeth exposed, spit-slick and hungry.

“Back to mine?”

He’s not handsome. He’s that weird combo of doughy and skinny. His hair looks like a banana that’s been melted down into a forward-combed emo-style 'do. His cigarettes are good though; expensive and harsh. He probably has some more at his place that she could snag after. And fuck it, it’s not like she has much planned for tomorrow other than moving to the other side of the country. 

“Yeah, okay.”

The cab is easy to find. Once in, his hand reaches for her knee and he circles it idly with one finger, smirking out the window. He keeps to his side, otherwise. No sudden, unexpected, taxi face-eating. Which, good. Points for you, Johnny. Or was it Jimmy? 

She likes it; the feel of his hand, his fingers. They’re long. Maybe this means she won’t be giving clit-finding lessons tonight. A girl can dream, right?

His hand stills and the touch changes meaning. It’s doing something for her, this wisp of nothing. The warmth radiates from the point of contact. She's feeling something here, this is a feeling.

Why is it that some guys do the grope thing and it feels like picnic ants, and with others it feels like promise, blossoming and rich? It's not the men, not really. It's her. Mixed with them. Some weird glitch of chemistry.

Like Jimmy/Johnny here. It certainly isn’t _interest_ that's getting things going. Gretchen barely knows the guy—Becca's sloppy seconds. It’s not his personality. He seems like a dick. A dick with a cool accent. But a dick. It isn’t attraction. She prefers them athletic, dark, handsome, not whatever he is. Sickly European Gamer? Insomniac Asshole Vampire? Guy that wears sneakers to a wedding?

Without thinking, she puts her hand on top of his and slowly, they twine their fingers together. Gretchen had expected his hands to be softer, weaker, but they’re not. Their strength is unexpectedly exciting. Maybe he doesn't have a country estate and a Jeeves, like her imagination initially gave him. Maybe his parents are bricklayers. Not that she cares. It's not like she needs to know this shit. Or think about it. She won't be seeing him again after tonight.

He moves their hands between them on the leather seat, looking out at the passing hills, dark but dotted with interspersed light. It feels comfortable, the motion of travel, the night, her hand in his. Like they've done this before. Comfortable.

They head towards Silver Lake, that's where he told the driver to go. Predictably. LATFH living in hipsterville. Fuck it, she'd probably live there too if she could. Gretchen likes to believe that she's too self aware to be a hipster but knows that all but assures that she is one.

She should just embrace it as part of her new East Coast self; find a place in Brooklyn instead of Manhattan. Start fucking dudes with beards and tattoo sleeves. Is New York cold already? Will she have to buy sweaters? Or one of those cute circle scarves? One of the downsides of Linds cutting down on blow—less knitting, less surprisingly well-made birthday gifts.

His thumb presses into the spot between her index finger and thumb, bringing her back. He has good hands. Yes. 

“I’m thinking about how much I want to kiss you again but I’m not keen on cliches, so I’ll wait. What about you? Any brilliant thoughts?”

She looks up, mouth slightly open. She'd forgotten she was a person, she thought she was just hands.

“You have good hands, dude. They're not wimpy.”

Jimmy/Johnny Winters-Hamme or whatever-his-name-is laughs a single laugh and offers a quicksilver flash of a smile. There’s something to his smile, she hadn’t registered it before. It’s dangerous. Not “I’m a 'nice guy' who’s gonna lock you up in a basement” dangerous. The good kind. Where the sex might actually be kinda fun. Maybe this hook-up isn't such a terrible idea.

“Whatever, Mr. Three Names. I doubt it means much.”

He smiles again and it stays this time; fixed and almost sunny. Gross. She into it though. Keep smiling like that, she thinks, when what she  _should_  be thinking is: why did she tell him the truth, when she could have lied?

When they get to his place, a house, up in the hills, they both reach out to pay and awkwardly split the bill. Gretchen watches the taxi take off, tail lights blinking and disappearing on the turn.

“So, Doll, do you wanna come inside and see my etchings?”

She spins around to him. “Was that your attempt at an American accent?”

“Shut up, it’s perfect.”

He opens his door and she follows.

“Keep telling yourself that.”

Jimmy, not Johnny, definitely Jimmy, kisses her again before the door closes behind her. It tastes sweet, only sweet now, not smoky, and she takes her time enjoying the flavor. She doesn’t even like him but she likes his mouth and his hands, one up on the wall behind her, the other grasping at her hip. The purloined champagne bottle still pressed tight against her side, clinking against the one barely in her purse, with a festive sort of sound, and every pass at her lips is like bells.


	2. Finish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gretchen pays Jimmy a visit, enjoys the comfort of his home thanks to Edgar Quintero.

Edgar, Jimmy’s roommate, is some kind of unemployed, Latino Kato Kaelin type— only more useful. Dumb but a total sweetheart. He kisses Gretchen's hand when he sees her and not in a creepy Disney Prince way, but like a courtly gentleman with a rose. He offers food, whipping up delicious magazine-worthy concoctions in ten minutes or less. One time, he'd even given Gretchen an espresso and a non-sexual foot rub just 'cause she'd mentioned she'd had a shitty day. Now _that_ ' _s_ her kind of roommate. Jimmy's a lucky jerk.

She’s about to start her third freshly-made Caipirinha at the Shive-Overly mid-century homestead, when Jimmy walks in, mail in hand, sunglasses on, scowl in place.

“Oh, you’re here. Don’t you ever just go home? Do you even have a home?”

Edgar rushes over like a mother hen. “Jimmy, that is no way to speak to our beautiful guest.”

Jimmy rolls his eyes and throws the bills down on the kitchen counter with a near-hostile exactness. As he passes, he peers down at Gretchen’s drink.

“That better not be my Cachaça.”

Gretchen smothers a snort. She relaxes her face back to neutral, gives her new fuck buddy a placid smile only slightly tinged with acid.

“Why do you look like you’re coming home from work, Jimmy? Do you pretend to commute?" She turns to Edgar. “Does he even work?”

“Yes, I work,” Jimmy interjects. “I purchased this home with the fruits of my labor, thank you very much.”

“He likes to walk around the neighborhood at this time to clear his head, he calls it his afternoon constitutional. It usually follows his nap.”

“Does he have a name for that too?” Gretchen laughs, and so does Edgar. Jimmy is unamused.

“Ha ha ha, very funny. Now where’s my drink?”

“Here, finish mine.”

Gretchen slides it over to him. He catches it, old Wild West Saloon style, bringing it up to his lips, drinking slowly, and narrowing his eyes.

“What about you? No Odd Future-lite concerts to attend this evening, I take it?” he says with a well-practiced sneer.

“Nope. I thought I’d hang out with you two losers.”

“What if I had plans? What if Edgar had plans?”

“I don’t have any plans,” Edgar offers.

“Shut up, Edgar. That’s not the point.”

Gretchen snorts indelicately. “Come off it, Jimmy. You have no plans.”

She lifts her leg and puts it on his knee. He looks down at her boots, at the visible striped athletic sock peeking out at the top. Two blue stripes. He gulps.

“I’ve been running around all day on a photo shoot for a teen pop star who’s counting the minutes until she can do porn. My feet are killing me. Do you think I can soak them in your tub?”

“I think that can be arranged.” He sounds strangled.

Ha. She knew this would work.

“Good. Are you going to be less of a grump now, Jimster?” Gretchen lifts her other boot, puts it on his lap, and taps her toes together once.

"Do not. Call me that." He shoves her feet off his lap and stands up. “I’m going to go take a shower. And read. Maybe.” He walks away, stiffly, down to his lair.

“So, Edgar.” Gretchen smiles winsomely at him. “Can I have another? Jimmy bogarted mine. And go on, finish your story about the Echo Park medium. You said she does house calls?”

When she thinks Jimmy has suffered enough, Gretchen takes the stairs down to his bedroom. She grinds her heels on the wooden steps as she ambles down, enjoying the echoing squeak.

Jimmy's on his bed pretending to read, frowning in boxers and half hard. Gretchen smirks at that and deliberately turns her back. She eyes the black and white prints on the walls. Gray-toned landscapes of deserts and gas stations, empty and impersonal. They’re okay, if you subscribe to West Elm. Sam would have a field day with him. He’d like his house though. Boys and their penis metaphors.

She turns around and props herself against Jimmy’s low metal dresser and tries in vain not to laugh outright. She does not succeed.

Jimmy gets that hard look in his eyes. “You are the Marquess De Sade, you are.”

Her laugh spirals, goes higher, until she’s snorting, clutching her side. She exhales into quiet and they stare at each other with matching smiles.

“So you still want me to go home, asshole?”

“Of course not, don’t be stupid.” He swallows. “Come here, you teasing wench.”

“No.”

Jimmy raises his eyebrows.

“You want it? You come to me, buddy. You crawl on over and you show me the proper respect I deserve as your houseguest." She lifts her skirt up.

His initial look of muted joy is replaced by one of confusion. "Are those _y-fronts_?"

"I'm behind on laundry."

"Are they _mine_?" he brays indignantly.

"I borrowed them from Edgar. Do you even wear this kind?"

His face is the picture of disgust. " _Borrowed?_ "

Okay, he needs to stop making that face or she will never, ever fuck him again.

"Fine, stole. What? They're clean. Now will you shut up and eat it?"

Jimmy doesn't mull it over for long. He kneels his way to where she stands, bends over, and kisses the toe of her boot. He licks the leather in long upward strokes and bites softly at her ankle, working up her calf to where her socks are visible. He grabs a piece of the sock with his teeth and pulls, looking up at her with enormous, blown-out eyes. It’s so fucking funny, but so fucking hot too. Because it’s clear he loves this weirdo shit, and his arousal is enough to get her going.

“Spread your legs wider,” he murmurs, his voice low.

And she loves how he says that word— _wider._ “No.”

He bites softly at her thigh, murmurs up at her. “Dearest Gretchen. Will you. Please. Spread your legs wider? A novel by me about you.”

“You’ve got hands, man. Use ‘em.”

He pushes her hips back hard and the metal of his stupid cabinet bites at her ass.

“OW!”

“Sorry! That was meant to be sexually forceful, not abusive. Are you all right?”

“God, Jimmy. Stop whining and keep at it. Jesus Christ, it's taking you a billion years to give me-”

Jimmy snatches her underpants down, dives in like a bomber, and her sentence disintegrates into a kind of yelp. Gretchen thinks her knees are going to give out but his hands are there, behind them, sliding up her thighs, providing support. Jimmy, the model of sexual efficiency, helps her lift a foot, step out of one side, then the other, and crawls his fingers up the inside of her thighs. He spreads her open, and leans in to suck on her clit with a growling hum, his other hand tight on her boot, pulling her leg over his shoulder. Somewhere between steps one and two, he'd gotten rid of his boxers, like some sex magician, and through fluttering eyelids, she watches his pale ass rutting away at nothing. Or is it her boot? Is he humping her boot? Boot-frottage?

It feels so fucking good, he doesn’t even need his fingers. Gretchen just fucks his face to the rhythm of his hips, and dimly registers the sound of his mouth, groaning against her, the vibration sweet and strong. She grabs his stupid hair and shoves him closer, muffling him. Gretchen's orgasm builds, her breaths mutating into low, insistent moans, but before she can get there, Jimmy stops. He turns his face away, wipes it on her thigh with a shell shocked-seeming nuzzle. They breathe hard, together. She watches the glistening trail of herself dry on her thigh.

“Sorry about your boots.”

She looks past him and sees jizz all over the one he was humping.

“Fuck, Jimmy. I just got these.”

“Relax, they won’t stain or anything. They are made of actual leather, are they not?"

Jimmy gets up, stretching, and returns seconds later, still half-naked but carrying a wet paper towel. He kneels down and cleans her boot lovingly.

“There. Right as rain.”

She is so exhausted. Gretchen’s head is swimming from all those Caipirinhas and her near miss with bliss.

"What's the matter? Did you not make it?"

“Yeah… I’m good." She stops, frowns, and runs her hand down her chest. The sweat there cools. She shivers a little. "Actually. That’s not true. Ya left me hanging.”

She doesn't meant to sound accusatory. Gretchen doesn’t even know why she says it. She could have just gone home and used Old Faithful. She’s always taken care of her own business if a guy couldn’t deliver. Of all the times to be honest, she’s not sure why this moment or why this point. Or why she's sorta mad at him for it. Her legs shake, she stills them by clamping her knees together.

Jimmy nods. He rubs her arms, takes her over to the bed, gently, and lays her down on it. He unzips her boots and peels them off. He removes everything except for her socks. She giggles helplessly, despite her exhaustion.

“Leaving the socks on, eh? You’re such a pervert.”

“Well, can you blame me? Look at you. You’re gorgeous.”

She opens one eye up at him and he’s looking at her with stupid appreciation. Gretchen turns her head to the mirror next to his bed. She does look pretty fucking hot. _Go, her._ He lowers himself and kisses the line of her cheekbone, closing his eyes.

“What do you want?” He kisses her mouth, scoots down to kiss the mole next to her breast, then further to her rib cage. “Do you want me to call you a cab, or do you want to go to sleep, or do you want to fuck some more?”

Gretchen pushes herself up to her elbows. “Are you fucking kidding me?" She peers down and sure enough, he's ready to go again. "Are you Erection Man? You are a freak of nature. You just came on my shoes! I saw it!”

He shrugs. “Do not underestimate the visual of a beautiful naked woman in athletic socks. Also, I happen to be gifted with excellent powers of recovery.”

“Say that again.”

“What? Excellent powers of recovery?”

“No. Athletic socks.”

He leans in and whispers dirtily in her ear. “Athletic. Socks.”

Gretchen loves his dumb accent, it always sounds like he’s working harder to say things than anyone else. All that exercise certainly did wonders for his mouth game.

“Okay. Fuck me. But take off your shirt first. I am not having sex with Porky Pig.”

"Why does it matter? It’s my penis doing all the work, not my thorax."

Gretchen stares at him.

"It's chilly!" he whines.

She gets up, looking around for her clothes.

Jimmy sighs. "Fine. Come back."

He hurriedly removes his t-shirt. His hair is horrible, all wet and plastered to his forehead. A part of her wants to call a getaway cab every time she sees it, that mop of his. The other part of her reminds herself that it’s not his hair she’s fucking.

"Happy now?"

She nods and pulls his head down to kiss her. They fall like swimmers back on the bed. Gretchen forgets he can talk, that she can talk, all that exists are the slide of their lips, the tiny wet noises as they open and bite. Jimmy slips on a condom he must’ve had at the ready and slides in easy.

Their pace is simultaneously sloppy and deliberate, a drowsy half-speed push and pull. She gasps sharply into his sweaty neck as she comes and he follows, pulsing dimly inside of her.

They zone out in pleasant silence. She’s vaguely aware of movement behind her but she knows it’s only the city, breathing beyond the windows— glittery, dirty Los Angeles, spread out and alive.

“Jimmy.”

He grunts in response.

“If you don’t want me to come over, you need to stop giving it up, ya big slut.”

“Right. I'll keep that in mind. Stop pleasuring the pants stealing she-devils. Hide the food and drink. Stick to reading Proust, that wanker.”

"Jimmy."

"What?"

"I thought there would be more toe sucking. I had my nails done today and everything. "

"Don't even say that, you're going to get me aroused again."

"There's so much _lint_ in between my toes from those socks."

He groans into his pillow.

It’s 7:30 p.m. and she falls asleep, so deep that even Jimmy’s stupid sleep apnea machine doesn’t wake her up.


	3. Address

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lunch with Lindsay and the wrong address.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to:
> 
> [lilamadison11](http://www.lilamadison11.tumblr.com) for discussing the finer points of L.A. with me 
> 
> [BryroseA](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BryroseA/pseuds/BryroseA/works) for the idle chit chat on 8th grade English curriculum choices.

Stab. Stab. Move food around. Stab. Stab. The screech of tines drag on the plate, the soundtrack to another two hour lunch. Lindsay sits across the table, talking. That high, staccato squeal providing a familiar, pleasant background to Gretchen’s spectacular hangover.

Lindsay’s lipstick is a dull housewife plum and as she monologues, her lips move in a series of perfectly delineated O shapes.

“—and I told her yeah, I'll do that, and now I'm stuck. What do you think? Should I sprinkle speed into the cunt's fondue?” She licks the sugar off of her spoon and leaves the utensil in her mouth. “Wed phthat pheven wawk?”

“Too complicated. Put eye drops in her Diet Coke.”

Lindsay takes the spoon out of her mouth and points it at Gretchen. “Oooh, good idea. You’re so smart. I love you.”

The spoon becomes a makeshift mirror and Lindsay uses it to inspect the curved reflection of her lips and teeth. Momentarily satisfied, she fishes her phone out of a quilted purse and types into it for a million years.

Gretchen’s delayed reaction hits. “Wait. Who are you drugging? I can't be an accessory. I have misdemeanor.”

Lindsay keeps typing with her thumbs. “That homeowners’ association bitch that wants me to host the book club this month.”

“Blech. What book?”

"The Goldfinch,” she says with a resigned sadness.

Gretchen pretends to throw up and almost does a little. “Double blech.”

“I know!”

They lean forward, tittering. Gretchen flicks at Lindsay's arm.

“When did you read it? You should've told me, so we could bitch about it.”

Lindsay lifts her brows and grimaces. “Well, I didn't 100% _read_ it, I did a very thorough skim. It's no Secret History.”

“That it ain't.”

Gretchen brings a forkful of spinach up to her face, then brings it back down. Nope, not gonna happen. Should she order the Bloody Mary now or wait until she’s back at work? The thought of it settles her stomach somewhat.

“When are they ever gonna do a movie of that?” Lindsay asks.

“Oh my god, take my money.”

“Right? We should get the rights and make it ourselves. You can write it, I'll direct. It can star Idris Elba.”

“Oh yeah. Wait. As who?”

“Who gives a shit? I swear I look at that man and my mouth opens. Just insert that cock.”

Gretchen laughs her ugly penguin laugh.

“Please. Like you don't?”

“Not really. If I'm attracted to someone, giving 'em a beej isn't the first thing on the bucket list, it's mostly something that happens.”

“Ew, bucket list. Old people. Yuck.” Lindsay shivers delicately. “I'm surprised, you're good at it. Remember when we double teamed that guy from that Nickelodeon show?”

“Yeah, he was sweet. He wanted to take us coat shopping and buy us snow boots. Where was he from again?”

“Saskatoon!” they cry in unison, trailing off into twin expressions of nostalgia.

“You didn't believe it was a real place! You made him Google image it!” Gretchen recalls.

“I had such a blast that night.” Lindsay's eyes get teary. “Sometimes it's all I think about, Gretch. I can barely walk down Melrose without wiping the drool off my face. All those hot gay boys. Sexy Latino gangbangers. All that beautiful cock. Just there. Waiting.”

“Mankind's loss is Paul's gain.”

Lindsay grits her teeth. “He doesn’t like having his dick sucked. His penis chafes easily.”

“Ew. That's a waste. You're really skilled, Linds. If they gave out regular, non-porn division awards for blow jobs, you'd be the undefeated champ.”

“Awwww, thanks, sweetie. That means a lot to me. Though, let's be real, I'd win porn division too.”

“Probs.”

Lindsay straightens up, suddenly business-like. “Whatcha doing tonight? Any events?”

“Nope. Award season is over, everyone's taking a break 'cept for Sam and,” she yawns, “...he doesn't need me in the recording studio anymore. I think I'm just going to go home and catch up on Archer.” Gretchen leans in and sips her Diet Coke, gripping her straw through her teeth. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Lindsay purses her lips. “I call bullshit. You're going to Jimmy's.”

“Am not.”

“Are too! Sweetie, he is such bad news. He will break your soul if you let him.”

“That's James Taylor. What are you, my dippy college roommate?”

“You were with him yesterday. On your birthday.”

“So?”

“And the day before.”

“He has a laundry room.”

“You drop yours off,” Lindsay counters.

“Okay, so I was with him. What's the big deal? We have fun. We're just having fun.”

“Honey, I want you to have fun. But this sounds a lot like a,” she drops her voice to a whisper, “—relationship.”

Gretchen gasps. “Shut your fucking face.”

“And do you really want your first relationship since—” Lindsay mumbles a name into her hand, “—to be with Sir Asshole?”

“What relationship? Ty? Who are you talking about?”

Lindsay rolls her eyes. “No, not the director, you know—” She mumbles into her hand again, still unintelligible.

“Oh.” Gretchen sips her drink, suddenly thirsty as hell. “ _That_ was _not_ a relationship. Anyway, Jimmy's not that bad.”

“You like him.”

“We have fun. It's just sex. And darts. We get drunk. We eat. We fuck. Watch TV. Fun.”

Lindsay purses her lips and crosses her arms. Her expression of concern is just that, concern, but it makes Gretchen feel like she’s coming down with chickenpox.

“I gotta go to back to work. Thank you for lunch, Linds.” Gretchen kisses Lindsay quickly on the cheek. “Relax. You know your sister is an uptight drama queen. Jimmy's not the devil. The devil would be richer and way more charming.”

“He is really rude.”

“That he is.”

“Don't go to his house.”

“Don't worry, I won't.”

They wave to each other with a flurry of fingers and Gretchen stomps out, her boot heels noisy on the tiled restaurant floor. She loves Lindsay, she does, and she doesn’t need to get back to the office. Not really. But Jimmy is not her boyfriend. Him being _that_ would be the unfunning of fun.

 

* * *

 

After work, she and a bunch of Caliber crew morons get drinks at one of those secret bars that _used_ to be fashionable ten years ago, but someone knows the bartender so fuck it. She drinks vodka cranberries, argues about Rihanna, comes clean on whether she’d fuck current day Leonardo DiCaprio (no) or sparkly circa Twilight Robert Pattinson (sadly, yes) and checks her phone again and again. Lindsay ‘grams a photo of her pedicure. Gretchen likes it. It’s a slow night.

Her walking eating disorder co-worker, Carrie, drives her home and Gretchen is fucked up enough that it doesn’t register until the Scion zooms off that she is standing in front of Jimmy’s place with her own keys in her hand. She clip-clops in place, facing east, then clip-clops in place the opposite way, jingling her keys and trying to decide whether or not to call a cab. She looks down at her feet. She loves her fringed summer boots, they make her feel festive and stately.

“Hi, Gretchen.”

There’s nobody there. “Hello?” she says, tentatively.

“Whatcha doing?”

She follows the voice down. The neighbor kid from across the street stands there, in a striped shirt, holding a bag of In-N-Out, peering at her from under a fringe of blond hair. How fucked up would it be if she asked if she could have his dinner?

“Oh hey, Killian. Isn't it past your bedtime or something?”

“My parents went out and my babysitter cancelled.”

“Oh, cool.”

Killian’s eyes are guileless and very, very blue and Gretchen feels like a real asshole for desperately wanting to grab his bag of food and canter away into the night.

“Whatcha got there, kid?”

“A hamburger and fries. We got extra. Do you want it?”

“Oh my god, yes.”

She snatches it out of his hand and starts tearing through the bag. The tin foiled wrapped burger is misshapen and damp but as far as she’s concerned it is made of angel tits. Gretchen bites into it, face melting from the pleasure, and resumes a slow, savoring chew. Killian stands there politely, not speaking, like a child butler.

“So how’s school?” she says, in mid-chomp.

“It’s pretty good.”

“Whatcha reading?”

“Crazy Lady.”

There's a moment of loaded silence while Gretchen considers how offended she should be towards the child that just fed her.

“That's the title,” Killian explains.

“Oh. It's a book. Ha! For a second there I thought— heh, never mind. So... reading. That's cool.”

Killian nods.

“I don’t know that one. What's it about?” She pauses to lick some ketchup off of her fingers. “Wait, is that based on that Antonio Banderas movie? It’s on Netflix. Check it out. It was way better than I expected.”

“My parents don’t let me watch Netflix because they don’t want me to see House of Cards. They think Kevin Spacey is a bad influence.”

“Phfft. House of Cards is totes overrated. Have you read The Secret Garden yet? Now that’s the shit right there. That little girl is a mega bitch. It's awesome.”

“Yeah, I read that in 4th gr—”

The front door opens and Jimmy strides out, inexplicably wearing a tracksuit. She always forgets how tall he is, he’s got a shorter man’s face.

“Hey, you. You scarpered with—” Jimmy stops when he sees Gretchen. “Oh, hello.”

“Hey, Run DMC. Enjoying your time hanging with minors?”

Killian points to the now-shredded bag of In-N-Out that Gretchen holds in her hands. The burger is done and she’s moved on to the fries.

“Sorry, Jimmy. I gave her the food. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” Jimmy rolls his eyes, and shakes his head. “Now run along. Head home, brush your teeth, put away your teddy bears, try not to put your head in the oven. You’ve got school in the morning.”

“Actually—”

“Night, Killian.” Gretchen moves to pat him on the head but her hands are greasy so she uses her elbow instead. It's hella awkward but Killian seems nonplussed.

“Night, guys.”

The boy trudges off across the street. Cute kid.

Jimmy reaches out for her and after some mock-resistance on her part, succeeds in pulling her in. They sway for a bit, then walk inside, still wrapped around each other. Something about the way he does this, this casual touching, it’s never particularly possessive or tender, even. It’s boring and normal and unthought-out. Like herself, at the moment. Drunky McDrunkerstein at her— what? Boyfriend’s house? Her Boyfriend. She shakes her head into his chest.

“I’m using you as a napkin, FYI,” she mumbles.

“It’s alright, it’s not mine, it’s Edgar’s.” Jimmy kisses the top of her head. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She has lies at the ready but she tells the truth. “I accidentally gave my ride your address. Not sure how, I didn't think I knew it.” Gretchen burps, covering her mouth. “I’m wasted. Sorry.”

“For what?”

She pulls back and breathes in. “I don’t know. For showing up again. For being drunk like 90% of the time we fuck.”

“Who says we’re fucking?”

Gretchen laughs and pushes at him with her head like a bull. “Yeah, right.”

“I mean it. You’re using me as some kind of standing mattress at the moment and as much as I find you appallingly sexy with your visible black bra lines and those ridiculous shoes, I’m not nearly as—”

“Aren't they cool? They make feel like a Clydesdale.” She angles her ankle to admire them.

“Do they jingle when you jog?”

“Oh my god, they need to, right?” Gretchen does an experimental standing gallop. "Maybe I can ask Lindsay to sew some bells onto them. My BFF is slowly turning into like, Martha Stewart. Bitch has way too much fucking time on her hands over there in her little West Sider McMansion.”

She weaves forward and catches her fall by grabbing on to Jimmy, taking the opportunity to wipe the remaining fry residue from her fingers on his sleeve.

Jimmy sighs. “Come on. Wash up those greasy fast food hands and go to bed. In the morning, when you’re sober, maybe you can put those boots back on and we can have sex against the windows.”

“Oh yeah? Sweet. Will you give me a ride to work after?”

“Absolutely not. What? Call your 'BFF'. You said she spends her days arranging her breasts in balconette brassieres—”

Gretchen snorts, rolling her eyes. “Well—”

“—whereas _I_ have a novel to write. You'll be doing her a favor, breaking up the monotony of her dull, shallow life.”

Gretchen grumbles but follows him downstairs to the bathroom, washing her hands and her face in the special autopilot of the inebriated. She finds her way over to the bed, kicks off her shoes, and falls back on the fluffy white comforter, arms and legs spread. There’s something hard there, right behind the small of her back, and she pulls out a hardcover from under the sheets. Wuthering Heights. The water runs in the bathroom, she listens to him brushing his teeth.

“Jimmy. Are you reading about the wily, windy moors?”

He gargles and spits, the water runs and stops abruptly. She pictures his wrists, the hard flick of the action.

“Yeah, re-reading.” he says.

Jimmy comes to bed, wiping his mouth, and carrying a glass of water. When he sits down, his back to her, Gretchen puts her hand on his hip and resists the urge to squeeze, to leave the red mark of her fingers on his doughy skin. He turns with a baleful look.

She bites the corner of her lip and squints. “Would you fuck Brontë?”

Jimmy blinks. “Which one— Emily?”

“Emily, Charlotte, the other two. Whichever.”

“I’d do all of them. Except for Branwell. He was a puerile, useless little tit. Riding the coattails of his sisters’ dark genius, doing fuck all, except sniveling to his daddy about his squandered promise and ooh, I need vermilion for my shitty portraiture. Whine, whine, fucking whine. Sisters? Can you all become governesses and support me financially while I drink myself to an early grave?”

Jimmy turns off the light and gets into bed, facing her. He balls up his fists and props his face up with one, smushing his cheek inwards, forcing his lips into an indignant, open pout.

“As if the world was clamoring for more poems that rhyme  _ember_  with  _remember_. God help us all from alcoholics with delusions of artistry,” he bites out contemptuously.

“Wow, Jimmy. You’re really protective of them Brontë broads.”

“Well, yeah. They were amazing. Wild, passionate minds at the mercy of the petty conventions of their time.”

She brushes a stray lash from his cheek. It’s so blond, it’s white. Gretchen blows it gently off of her finger, thinking  _make a wish_ but not coming up with one.

“Didn't he help make up that crazy world of theirs?” Gretchen says, after a moment.

Jimmy grabs his pillow and puts it under his cheek, a round red spot where his fist had been, his expression quizzical.

“You know,” she continues, “-their crazy make-believe world. With the toy soldiers and the tiny books with the itsy bitsy handwriting.”

“The Empire of Angria.”

“Yeah.”

He grins at her stupidly, in that wiggly mouthed way of his.

“What? I took some Lit courses back in the day. I know a few things. Also, I read Wikipedia on the john sometimes.” Gretchen yawns and covers her mouth a second too late. “Excuse me.”

Jimmy touches her forehead with the tip of his index finger, then lower. He smooths down her eyebrow.

“I love it,” he says. "It’s like petting a fetching brown caterpillar.”

“Fuck you, comb over.”

Jimmy kisses her eyebrows, and her cheek. It's so gentle it feels like sun filtering through leaves, the flickers of warmth tickling her face. They stare at each other in the dark and her mind is beautifully blank, like a white field, like heavy smog. She falls asleep before he does and dreams that she’s housesitting for Emily Brontë, who’s left the Moors for the L.A. hills, a script doctoring job, and the promise of a good lay.


	4. Phone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gretchen is late to dinner with Linds. It's all Jimmy's fault.

The houses are almost uniformly white, the stark glare of them loud in the light. They’re tight on this side of the reservoir but well-positioned. Close, but staggered. If you try hard enough, you can pretend that there’s no one else around, that the houses in front of you aren't real. They’re those model homes made of neatly sliced styrofoam presented by an architecture firm as the next big thing in hillside living. Keep right on pretending until a squat middle-aged person comes outside a few houses down, unspooling a long green garden hose to water their lemon trees, ruining the placid vibe.

Gretchen watches someone do just that. Their shirt is red, their shorts are khaki, and the vibrant blue afternoon sky is full of fluffy cotton candy clouds. The water arcs out of the garden hose, over their head, landing on the trees and coming back down, dripping brightly off the leaves. God, she loves that smell— when water hits dirt, like a sudden rain on a dry, summer day.

She wishes they were outside so she could smell it. Then again, she’s doing okay right where she is.

The laptop computer screen in front of her is open but she isn’t watching. Her attention’s split between the vista through the windows and the intense pushing build. The wind blows the limbs of a tree with perfect almond-shaped green-blue leaves and she moves to it, subtly. She likes the way the branches look like they’re gladly giving in to the earth, slumping down as the ground, reaching for the dirt. Her hand snakes down on top of his, the long jamb of his thumb insistent against her pulse. The floor underneath cracks open and expands, an explosion-response, like a meteor hit, leaving a large bowl of a crater, miles down and down and around. She falls. The fall goes on for too long, long enough to worry, feel fear, recover, laugh nervously, then return back to simple, unconcerned gasping.

Jimmy’s breath is in her ear. He thrusts erratically, holding her upright, his arm under and across her like a seatbelt. He climaxes with a shudder, his lips moving against her skin, but with no sound.

Now that she’s back in the present, the animated phallic sea mushroom things on the screen take on a slightly repulsive edge. Hentai is all well and good before the act, but after, it’s like any other type of porn. You don’t want to look at it anymore. She slaps the laptop closed.

“Hey,” Jimmy whines hoarsely. “At least shut down properly.”

“Get out of me then. God.”

He eases her forward as he pulls out and she supports her weight on her elbows.

“Holy shitballs, that was awesome,” she manages.

“Did you _squirt_?”

“Really?” She scrambles around. “Shut up. That’s not a real thing.”

Jimmy’s expression lives somewhere between awe, pride, and disgust. “It’s like soup down here.”

They stare at their wet spot.

“Ha ha ha, it’s on your side.” Gretchen grabs her phone and takes a picture.

“That is repulsive.”

“Tough shit, dude. Use that laundry room of yours.”

Jimmy groans and stretches his torso, swiveling from one side to the other, and slides off the bed in the direction of the bathroom.

“Bring me some water,” Gretchen rasps.

He comes back with a wet washcloth and two glasses of water.

“Thanks.” She wipes her thighs. “Oops. I was supposed to meet Linds and Paul at their house for dinner twenty minutes ago.”

“What a nightmare.”

“I don’t want to go. Paul is so boring. Bankers are the worst.”

“So phone them and tell them you don’t want to go. You’ve found better things to do.”

He smacks her on the ass, then, as an afterthought, bites a cheek. She grunts.

“Tell them that I tied you up and that you can’t make it on account of actual fun,” he says.

Gretchen turns to look at him. “You would tie me up?”

“Sure. If you wanted me to. Would you tie me up?”

She considers it. “Yeah, but I’m kind of lazy so generally I prefer being dominated. Less work.”

“I concur. It’s exhausting issuing all those commands.”

“I know, right? We can take turns, I guess.”

Jimmy takes her hair and lays a chunk of it above his lip, a long russet mustache. It’s a visual.

“Is there anything you wouldn't let me do to you? Do you have any hard limits?” he asks, his "mustache" going lopsided.

“Well, not like, hardcore pain or blood play. Otherwise I’m pretty game when it comes to sex stuff. Just, you know, give me a heads up before you try anal. Why, you have something in mind?”

Jimmy shakes his head from side to side as if he’s mulling it over. He shrugs. "No. Not really."

“What about you? Is there anything that’s off limits?”

“I’m not so keen on water sports.”

She furrows her brow and rests her head on her fist. “Really? I thought all Englishmen were into that shit.”

“You’re thinking of Scots.”

He stretches his arms behind him, lacing his fingers together and resting his head in their cradle. “I suppose I understand the appeal. It’s warm, it strikes the body unexpectedly, it’s a fluid, it’s, in a gloriously boring, middling sort of way, a taboo. But when all’s said and done, it’s _wee_. If it’s something I can’t stand lying in afterwards, forget it.”

“Ha. Good point. Anything else?”

“No pegging.”

“Aaaw, man. Really?”

“Yeah. My butt is very sensitive. Rimming is fine, one finger, _with proper lubrication_ , is great, but anything bigger is a no, thank you.”

Her smile goes crooked. “No wonder you've never been in a threesome. You’re a homophobe.”

“Am not! I’ve kissed other men.”

“Really?” Gretchen’s eyes widen with interest. “Hmm. _Men_ as in plural. Tell me about it.”

He smirks and runs a finger slowly on the wing of her shoulder blade.

“Well, I was fifteen, he was seventeen. His hair was the copper of a dull penny, his eyes were brown like winter moss, and he loved to tell the most outrageous fibs."

“Oh, fuck you.”

She slaps his arm with a flurry of whacks and he snickers as he blocks her blows. Gretchen huffs and turns away from him, towards the mirror. His hand reappears on her shoulder. In the reflection, it resembles Thing from The Addams Family.

“It was nothing," he murmurs. "I was young and he was a friend. Once to try it, second time to make sure. There were misunderstandings and recriminations. It was stupid and small and shameful in its banality."

His hand moves down her spine to the dimples at the bottom.

"Everyone experiments. It’s not always beautiful. Sometimes it’s just a sad little story with a dud of an ending that wouldn't pass muster at a YWCA writer’s workshop.”

He laughs at his own joke. Jimmy does that, it's a "Jimmy" thing. If it were anyone else, she’d make fun of them for it. With him, it's endearing. She hates that.

“I don’t know why I haven’t had a threesome,” Jimmy says, finally, in a tone that suggests irritation with himself. “I suspect because it’s hard for me to find one person I can stand, let alone two.”

Gretchen turns her head towards him. “But who says you have to like them, Jimmy? It’s just sex.”

“I know, but the odds are not on your side, there’s two… parties to contend with. Two people to get away from or kick out.”

Jimmy is surprisingly hairless, like a dolphin. His thighs are smooth and soft and she likes to pass the back of her hands on them so she does. He's ticklish so he giggles. Jimmy doesn’t laugh for long, soon enough a scowl blooms on his face, settling with permanency.

“And they always have to call afterwards,” he continues. “Or email. Why? It’s pathetic. I hate people. I base my routines around the fact that I can’t avoid the idiocy of others, and somehow find the means to make life somewhat bearable for myself but let me tell you, it's a real struggle.”

“I don’t like that many people either but I don’t dwell on it enough to be bothered by it, I guess. Besides I love threesomes, I love group sex. It’s my favorite type of porn,” she pauses, suddenly remembering. “Hey. Have you ever heard of Black Dwell?”

“Is that a web series about suburban orgies?”

She frowns. “No. A magazine. Houses and stuff.”

“Oh. Yeah. Donald Glover’s house was featured in it. He had one of those hideous Mid-Century star burst clocks. What a joke. I hate it when people are unimaginative about decor.”

“Why does every man I know have an architecture and design boner? It’s so lame.”

Gretchen sidles up to him. She's already close but wants to be closer. Jimmy puts his arm around her, stroking her shoulder softly. He smiles.

“When I saw this house, I… I’d never experienced anything like it. I’d never felt that way about anything. I knew that I _had_ to live here. I knew that it was, for lack of a better word, _home_.”

She fixes his hair part with her fingers. He looks like a child as he speaks, bright and excitable.

“This room was empty,” he continues, “—and I looked out at the bright and mocking blue of that water out there and said life may be a sad, sick joke but you are wondrous and you are mine.”

The air conditioner hums softly and its accidental melody reminds Gretchen of something— a song, a memory.

“Have you ever read Raymond Chandler?” he asks.

“Is that the guy who wrote _Short Cuts_?”

“No. You’re thinking of Raymond _Carver_ , dum dum. Raymond Chandler wrote _The Big Sleep_. Surely, you've seen the film? Bogie and Bacall?”

“Nope. I don’t like Black and White movies. I find 'em hella boring.”

“Heathen,” he mutters under his breath.

“Whatever, TCM,” she retorts.

“I may have to stop sleeping with you. I’m genuinely appalled.”

“Get over it. Tell me about Raymond Carver.”

“Chandler.”

“Yeah.”

“He wrote these beautiful, pulpy novels about private eyes, corrupt law enforcement, sharp-tongued dames, and California. The prose is so dense and perfumed, you can wrap yourself in it. I read them when I was a kid, I thought that that was what America was.”

“When did you get your rude awakening?”

“About five seconds after landing in L.A.X. and encountering a Hari Krishna for the first time.”

“I maced one once.”

“Really?” He peers down at her, grinning.

“Uh huh.”

“You’re brilliant.”

He kisses her and she closes her eyes. When she opens them again, he’s staring ahead at nothing, open and peaceful.

Gretchen clears her throat and rolls over. “So you got your Masters at UCLA?”

“No. Riverside.”

They turn to each other, grimacing at the same time, then giggling.

“Where did _you_ go to university?” Jimmy kisses her earlobe, biting softly.

“NYU. And no, you don't want to know my major.”

His sudden smile is face-cracking enormous, it practically reaches his ears. She covers it with her hand, his eyes crinkle.

“Stop. I know, shut up. I had fun. It’s New York City, man. I mean, what are your twenties for if not to do drugs, get at least one shitty tattoo, and fuck a lot of weirdos?”

“Were you one of those typical teenagers that went wild living on your own for the first time, away from parental censure?”

“Nah. My parents sent me to boarding school. I’ve been on my own forever.”

Her phone chimes, she grabs it and looks at the time.

“Shit. I really gotta go. Wanna come with me to Lindsay’s?”

“No, thank you.”

She gathers her clothes tentatively as if she’s relearning to move. Jimmy’s reading something on his phone.

“Hey,” he says, barely glancing over his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Can you turn off the air upstairs? Edgar always leaves it on.”

Gretchen walks upstairs, the light outside is changing and the room has that last gasp of orange yellow light. She stands stock still, her hand poised over the air controls. Her phone chimes again and making her jump. She should call a cab, she should cancel on Lindsay, she should—

“Oh. I thought you’d left.”

He stands at the top of the stairs, holding her glass of water.

She means to say something funny. “Just enjoying the light.”

“Yeah, it’s beautiful.”

Jimmy doesn’t look outside, he looks at her. Before she knows it, he's close enough to be tickled by some stray strands of her hair. He wrinkles his nose, then presses his lips against hers; a pillow to a pillow, soft and knowing. When they break apart, she sighs. He squeezes her arm.

“If you don’t want to go, just call them and tell them.”

She rifles through her purse for her lipstick. “No, that’s rude.”

“What? Ruder than being an hour late?” he huffs.

He picks up the house phone and instead of stopping him, Gretchen lifts her arm, palm up, a wordless plea delivered at the exquisite slowed-down speed before an accident.

Jimmy hits the up and down buttons, finds what he needs, and hits call. He sneezes into his elbow and grabs a tissue off of the kitchen counter. Lindsay’s voice pings sharply on the other end as he blows his nose.

He sniffs loudly. “Oh hey, Lindsay. Yeah. Gretchen isn’t gonna make it, she doesn’t want to come. She’ll call you tomorrow. Probably. Byeeeeeee.” 

He hits end call and puts the phone down with a cat meets canary grin. Gretchen crosses her arms in front of herself.

“That was uncool.”

“It was true. Lying to make people feel—”

“It was high handed and rude, Jimmy. You are not allowed to do that.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

Jimmy’s smugness deflates a little but she's still furious.

“Do you want to go get dinner?” he asks tentatively.

“No.”

“Alright.”

They stand in silence, her phone chimes once more. She bites her lip and taps her foot.

“Look. I want to go Pacific Park. Eat crappy amusement park food. Shoot water into the mouths of clowns. Flash a funhouse mirror.”

“Yeah. Okay,” he says. "That sounds entertaining.”

“You want to come with me?”

“Can I? I mean, do you want me to?” Jimmy looks so hopeful, she’d laugh if she wasn’t so simultaneously freaked out.

“Uh-huh. Let’s do it. Hurry up, get dressed. I’ll wait on the back steps, I don’t want to be inside anymore.”

“Right. Give me ten minutes,” he says, skittering off like an excitable dog.

For a moment, her nails play agitated arpeggios against the wall before her mind takes over and she shuts off the air. The glass door to the patio gets stuck but she’s perfected the trick to zig-zagging it open. She plops onto the step and shoots off a quick apology text to Lindsay. Her U SUCK CLL ME BITCH reply comes back two seconds later.

She looks down towards the reservoir. Red shirt is back in their yard. Even squinting, Gretchen can’t quite tell if it’s a man or a woman. They reach for a lemon on their tree and after several tugs, manage to pull it off, and she wants to clap for them. Which is so unbelievably stupid, she’s glad there’s no one around to catch the thought. The minutes stretch out and the androgynous backyard gardener sings _Party in the U.S.A._ in Truman Capote-like voice: thin, high, and frail as old bones.

Gretchen has an immediate and urgent need to bail. She stands up, fully intending to run out and walk and walk until she reaches somewhere she can either call for an Uber or hail a taxi. Text another apology. Sorry! Apologies for everybody.

There’s a quick beat tapped on the glass behind her. Jimmy, in her favorite shirt on him— a black button down, grinning with all of his teeth like a cartoon madman, the way he does when he’s excited. Over a dumb piece of furniture or her feet and now apparently, amusement parks. She walks over to the glass, puts her hand up, her fingers ghosting over his. The sprinklers next door turn on with a hiss and the smell hits: dirt, water. Jimmy.


	5. Parents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Okay, blah blah blah. Girl, boy, issues. Whatever. What is this story even about? Does it _mean_ anything?” Or, the one where they get kicked out of the public pool and wind up in Brentwood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thank you to [katelinnea](http://www.katelinnea.tumblr.com) for giving this chapter an additional beta read.

Out in the late afternoon sunlight of a perfect summer's day, Lindsay’s rack competes with her teeth for most blinding visual. It's hard to concentrate on what she's saying when everything about her is the physical embodiment of a shriek.

“Okay, blah blah blah. Girl, boy, issues. Whatever. What is this story even about? Does it _mean_ anything?”

Jimmy’s mouth opens and closes before settling into his default scoff. “It's not a 'story'. It's a novel. You do understand what a novel is? It continues _past_ the opening chapter.”

The morning had started off uneventfully enough. The four of them had headed out to a public pool in Echo Park, a bit buzzed and a lot stoned, and shortly after arriving, some kids and their grandmas started screaming, crossing themselves, and throwing things at Edgar. In the aftermath of the flying salted-mango and wet towel pandemonium they were thrown out of the complex, hot and dry, pleasant buzz harshed way out of existence.

Gretchen had made a single hushed phone call and, after hanging up, instructed Jimmy to drive them to an address in Brentwood. She’d punched in a security code at the gate, then another at the door and then guided everyone through the sleek modern house to a stunning pool.

Now, Lindsay stretches out on a teak poolside lounger, wearing an enormous sunhat and a green one-piece halter bathing suit straight out of a ‘40s pin-up. “For books I have a three-step elimination process: One. Does it look good? If the cover sucks, I'm not carrying it around.”

“You're serious. She's serious. Is no one bothered by this? At all?” Jimmy looks around at the group. No one responds.

“I make an effort to look nice, the book should too.” Lindsay rubs some more sunblock on her shoulders.

“What about a Kindle?” Gretchen asks, turning her copy of _US Magazine_ sideways to admire the Photoshop job on a singer's thighs. “I want one but I’m worried I might break it.”

“Ew. Kindle's for sad people that have to commute. Besides people need to see what I’m reading, otherwise what's the point?”

“You mean besides being transported by the beauty of language?” Jimmy says.

Lindsay ignores his jab and continues. “Two, if the first paragraph doesn't give me a good idea of what's happening for the next 100 pages, I'm out.”

Jimmy’s face continues to display impressive shades of indignation. “What? 100 pages? Whe–”

“Makes total sense to me,” Edgar nods encouragingly.

“Thank you, Edgar. Three, if I flip the book open somewhere in the middle, people should be boning.”

Jimmy mouths _boning_ and Gretchen pushes him with her foot. He looks at it, reaching for her ankle, the sudden bloom of a leer in the set of his mouth.

Lindsay adjusts her bathing suit top to display more cleavage. “It's a surprisingly good barometer of whether or not I'm going to like a book.”

“I'm gonna try that,” Gretchen says, and tucks her foot underneath her towel, away from Jimmy's fingers.

“You should.”

Jimmy harrumphs loudly, throwing himself back on the lounger. “I-I-I don't know how to respond to this.” He presses his lips together and shakes his head. “I am literally struck speechless. No wait, I'm not. _What?!_ ”

“Jimmy, people read what they _like_ not what some boring middle aged fart raved about in the paper. If you want to be a writer for yourself, that's one thing, but if you want to make some money, you have to write for an audience. Judging from your book cover, you write about nerdy losers who probably say really mean things about women. That's huge right now. Dumb it down more and you'll have it made.” Lindsay's voice speeds up in excitement. “Think of all that airport money you'll snag from guys who can't get laid. ‘Cause you’re not getting any younger and you won’t get any more interview gigs bashing the people whose ass you're supposed to be kissing. I’m surprised you aren’t on a PR blacklist.”

Gretchen turns the page to a photo of some hot Swedish actor leaving a gym. “She kind of has a point.”

“I make decent money. I’m doing fine.”

“Gretchen told me about your royalty check.”

“Sorry, babe,” Gretchen drawls.

“Don’t deny it, Jimmy. You’re cash poor. All because you don’t care about your readers.”

Jimmy huffs. “I don’t have to defend my work to _you_. The last thing you read was pornographic _Teen Wolf_ fanfiction. I know, Gretchen told me.”

“Sorry, Linds.” Gretchen scrunches up her face apologetically.

Lindsay squirts sunblock onto Edgar’s back and spreads it around with the heel of her palm. “It was really good, you guys. They could totally publish that and like, change the names and stuff and it would be a huge hit. Make the author private island fire rich.”

“Like Richard Branson,” Edgar offers.

“Yes, exactly! Like Richard Branson, Jimmy.”

“Change the names? What, from Biff to Stew? Tell me, in this genius reworking, what would they transform into instead of werewolves? Cats? Turtles? Oh, I know, pandas! Adult Pandas. Is that low-concept populist enough for you?”

“You’ve clearly never watched the show.”

“Let me guess. Werewolves. Who are teenagers. Played by actors. Who are not. Am I close?”

“Okay.” Lindsay squirts some more sunblock into her hands and applies it liberally over her neck and chest. “I don’t know why you’re getting so upset, I just asked what the point of your book was. Is it about manpain or not?”

Gretchen turns the page of her magazine. Before and after plastic surgery photos, her favorite. “It’s about manpain.”

“Oh great, thanks. _You_ haven’t even read it.”

“And also, about my sister, don’t forget.” Lindsay wrinkles her nose. “Gross. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why? Do I really want to read a thinly disguised version of Becca as a lemon-faced, overly critical shrew?”

“Well, yeah, Linds. You would,” Gretchen deadpans.

“Okay, true. Jimmy, I still won’t read it. Add some hot man on man stuff and maybe I’ll give it a shot.”

“Great. Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

There’s no heat in his huff. Jimmy's eyes are hidden by his sunglasses but Gretchen knows he’s looking at her like she’s dessert, book-indignation all forgotten. He angles closer.

Lindsay and Edgar continue a previous conversation about some reality show Gretchen doesn’t watch and she goes back to her gossip rag. “I liked that movie,” she says, after a moment, soft enough that only Jimmy hears her.

They’d spent last night watching a black and white movie he’d insisted she should see. She’d liked it, it was funny, but she liked him more, even if she fallen asleep mid-make out.

“Really? You didn't say anything. You passed out before the post-mortem discussion.” Jimmy's close enough to finger-walk down her arm. She shoves him away.

“I was trying to avoid that face you make when you think you've won.”

“But I have won. You just admitted to liking something. I consider that an enormous victory.”

His smile is ridiculous and she mouth-frowns in response. Jimmy snaps his fingers at Edgar. “Come on, Easy. Let's see if we can rustle up some food. I’m starving.”

“I'm comfortable.”

“Oh, how nice for you. Get up. You're my bodyguard in case of gang activity.”

“In this neighborhood?”

“Right. Good point. Come anyway. I don’t really know my way around.”

Lindsay oohs excitedly. “You guys, there's a really good Mexican restaurant on Gateway. Go to that one. What’s it called, Gretch?”

“Tacomiendo. Yeah, go there.”

“Okay. Edgar, come on.” Jimmy kicks the lounger a couple of times.

Edgar pretends to snore. Lindsay and Gretchen titter.

“Fine.” Jimmy spits out. “Fuck every single one of you. I’m going to order five flautas and eat them all.”

He stomps off into the house. Edgar pops up onto his feet and does a few jumping jacks, smiling at his meager victory.

“I just wanted to give him head start. He’s gonna sit in his car fuming for ten minutes, singing Verdi or something. Anybody want anything special?”

Lindsay squeals with delight, unselfconsciously shimmying in her seat. “Get me a Super Burrito please. And an order of nachos. You know, for everybody.”

“Fish tacos,” says Gretchen

“And a Diet Coke.” Lindsay looks at Gretchen, who nods. “Make that two Diet Cokes.”

“Not Diet Pepsi,” Gretchen clarifies. “If they only have Diet Pepsi, I'll take a seltzer with lime instead.”

“Same. Wait— is there booze here?” Lindsay claps her hands together and twiddles her fingers.

“Probably.”

“Can we drink it?”

Gretchen shrugs. “Sure.”

Edgar writes their order in a small notepad he procures from the plastic bag carrying his towel, then salutes and heads into the house, a man with a mission. Seconds later, they hear the car start.

“Shit. I better text them the security codes or they won’t be able to get back in.”

Gretchen texts the numbers to Jimmy and Lindsay takes off her hat and goes to the diving board, walking its length with practiced deliberation. When she dives, she hits the water cleanly, silently, a hot knife through butter. She does a slow breaststroke near the bottom, undulating circles of reflected light in her wake like a Hockney painting come to life. Gretchen moves to the side of the pool and sits, wincing at the contact with the water, even though it’s warm, even though it’s perfect. Lindsay swims over and puts her hand on Gretchen’s thigh, beaded from the mix of pool water and sunblock.

“Linds. I'm getting scared.”

“I _knew_ it,” she hisses. “Is he getting too clingy? Is it weird? Do you need to move in with me? We have two spare bedrooms. Or you know what, I’ll kick Paul out and tell him you have to sleep with me because you’re too distraught.”

“What? No. Jimmy hasn't done anything. Also, I have an apartment.”

Lindsay looks as serious as a terminal illness. “Do you, Gretch?”

All Gretchen can manage is a look of confusion, a sorta smile, and an involuntary nervous kick of water. It splashes brightly.

“Then what is it?” Lindsay rests her chin on Gretchen’s knee, bobbing in the water. “I hate to say this, but this may be the nicest I’ve ever seen Jimmy. Sure he’s contrary and snobby and still kind of a raging asshole but at least he’s talking. I don’t think I said five words to him when he was with Becca. He’s actually _better_ with you.”

"Right. Never mind. I’m fine.” Gretchen laughs out loud, dry, quick, like a bark, and covers her mouth.

Lindsay pushes off the wall backwards and backstrokes to the other side of the pool. She hits the wall with her hands and flips around, like the high school swim team member she once was and will always be, unthinkingly, in her bones.

She pulls herself out of the pool in buoyant burst of dripping water and wriggles around to sit next to Gretchen at the pool’s edge, her wet thighs making soft slapping sounds as she settles. Gretchen turns her head slowly, eyes big and blank like a painting of a frightened child, hand still at her mouth.

“I think… I-I'm happy.”

“Oh, Gretchface.”

“Don't tell Jimmy. I'll knee you in the box.”

“Aw.” Lindsay sticks her bottom lip out in a sympathetic pout.

“Stop it," Gretchen hisses. "You’re making me feel like I’m about to get a breast cancer diagnosis.”

“Face it, sweetie, that slouching slice of misery you call a boyfriend—”

“Yuck.”

“...is who you want to be with. I'll never stop making fun of you for it, questioning it, making you feel you're making a huge life-wrecking mistake BUT it doesn't mean it's not totally adorable and that I'm not jealous of what you've found. I mean thank god for Edgar, otherwise I'd be third-wheeling over here and that is not cute.”

“You could bring Paul to these things. No one would mind.”

They stare at each other in silence then burst out laughing.

“Can you imagine? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him near a pool. He’d probably wear water wings. I'm glad Ty doesn't have a hold on you anymore. I mean he's masculine, powerful, and rich but watching you run every time he called wasn't fun for me.”

“I didn't run,” Gretchen objects. “Maybe I was convincing myself that I was being a good hook-up buddy. Maybe I wanted to get laid. I don't know. I will tell you this— kissing Ty hours after kissing Jimmy was… ”

“What? Earth shattering?”

“No.”

“Mind blowing.”

“The opposite. It was different. Important-different. Like when they turn the lights on at the bar after last call and you can finally see what people really look like. I dunno, he skeeved me out. He made way too much fucking eye contact.”

“But Ty is so hot.”

“I know.”

“He’s like a sexy Mossad agent.”

“I know.”

“Like Eric Bana in that movie with the terrorists. I masturbated so much to that thing, I really should know what it’s called.”

Gretchen hmms in agreement.

“And Jimmy is… Well, not that hot, Gretchen.”

“I don’t know. He’s kind of grown on me.” She smiles crookedly, thinking of Jimmy’s dumb face in the morning.

“You think Jimmy is hotter than Ty?”

“Kinda? I don’t know. He does it for me. That’s crazy, right?”

Lindsay’s mouth opens wide, then closes with a snap, like an alligator. “I need a drink.”

“Me too.”

Lindsay grabs her towel and briskly dries her hair, looking at Gretchen through the damp strands, suddenly serious and tearful.

“You know how I know you like Jimmy? You tell him the truth. You. Gretch. You lie so much I don't even notice anymore. And it makes me jealous and mad because I’m the one you should be totally honest with. Not some English bozo you met two minutes ago.”

“I know. I can’t seem to stop. It’s horrible. I haven’t even checked my email. That’s the real tragedy. Who am I? What is the matter with me?”

Gretchen lifts her arms up in silent help-me-up beseechment.

Lindsay sighs. “All I know is if you’re falling asleep holding hands in front of the TV or some shit without so much as a hummer then you’re probably in love or something.”

Gretchen quickly smothers a guilty wince. Lindsay doesn’t catch it. She turns to Gretchen with a determined look.

“We need tequila.”

“Yes.”

They go into the house and meticulously search the kitchen cupboards for booze. They find it.

 

* * *

 

A half an hour, two tequila shots, a too-long swim and a sample of everyone’s Mexican food order later and Gretchen is splayed out next to Jimmy, her leg covering his. She bites his ear.

“Hey.”

Jimmy side-eyes her. “Stop. You smell like cilantro and garlic.”

She licks his face and he laughs and wipes his face ineffectually with the back of his hand.

“You love it, Jimster.”

Gretchen goes for another lick but he turns his head and opens his mouth. They make out sloppily and it goes from jokey-gross to kind of sexy in seconds.

Lindsay throws her towel at them. “You guys are so disgusting. You’re like, gonna fuck right here. I’m not leaving, you know, I’m totally gonna watch.”

Gretchen stands up and pulls at Jimmy’s shirt. “Come on, dude. Help me find some limes.”

She drags him to the side of the house, pushes him against a wall and sticks her hands down his shorts. He mutters a single stuttered _f-f-f-fuck_.

“Please tell me this is the part where we have sex,” he murmurs into her chin between kisses.

“Yeah-huh.”

“Should we go inside?”

“Nah, here. Keep walking, at the end of this path, there’s a ‘meditation garden’, perfect for some outdoor romping. It smells a little like shit but I think it’s fertilizer.”

“Sounds charming.”

They kiss-walk-grind down the faux zen garden path until they hit the dead end. There is a koi pond, a cushioned meditation seat and an enormous stone Buddha head.

Jimmy laughs. “They purchase the set, ya think? The meditation special for Brentwood tossers that fancy themselves ‘enlightened’.” He unzips her cover-up and puts his hand on her sternum. He kisses her neck. “Whose place is this anyway?”

“A client. Come on, I need to repay this morning’s favor, I’ll make it a fast one. Five minutes, tops.”

She gets on her tiptoes and bites at his lip.

“You’re really selling this. The press release is just writing itself—”

“My press releases are the best.”

“Yes, they are.” Jimmy does a double take. “Have you got me doing PR innuendo now? Fuck, I _must_ like you.”

“GRRRREEETCH.” Lindsay screeches distantly.

“WHAT.”

Jimmy undoes her top.

“YOUR PHONE.”

“God. Who cares?” Jimmy murmurs against her skin. He puts his mouth on her nipple, using his tongue to pull a low, flat groan from her.

“LOOKS IMPORTANT.”

“FINE. BE RIGHT THERE. Come on, before work finds me.”

The assignation is quick and dirty but satisfying in the way of mildly naughty things. The small pruned trees overlooking the spot are dripping with ripened berries and her knees stain blue-black from the stuff. She works her fingers down her bikini bottoms as he face-fucks her and she comes when he does. Their eyes lock as it happens and he grimaces, his face giving way, softening. She continues to suck him off until the waves of her orgasm subside and he whimpers when she releases him, his hand buried in her hair.

They stay like that: Gretchen kneeling, resting her face on his thigh, and Jimmy slumped heavily against the wall. There’s a salamander on one of the garden stones next to them, staring at her with its blank lizard gaze. The helicopters of Los Angeles endlessly circle above and Gretchen hums their drone, like it’s a song she loves. She pulls up Jimmy’s shorts, leaving them crooked on his hips, and kisses her way to standing. He kisses her back, not mentioning her wet bathing suit, her pruny chlorine-fingers or Mexican food breath. The salamander scuttles away.

Jimmy leans down to rest his forehead against hers and gently pulls up the top of her suit straps, bringing them around her neck. He whispers “the rabbit hops out of the hole,” as he ties them together in one large, loopy bow.

Her mouth dries out. “I better check that call. It’s probably Sam. I’m on probation, sorta. It’s tricky. Excuse me.”

Gretchen stumbles on the way back to the pool; her sandal gets caught on some unevenly spaced travertine but she manages to right herself and not fall. She catches a glimpse of her chest, bright red from sex or sun, and zips her cover-up closed. She's good, she’s got this.

Lindsay and Edgar tread in the pool, an enormous bag of coke balanced precariously on the diving board.

“Where did you find that big bag of coke?” Gretchen's nose twitches in Pavlovian response.

“That’s not coke. That’s flour,” Lindsay explains.

“Okay, why is there a big bag of flour on the diving board?”

“It’s Edgar’s. He grabbed it from one of his hiding spots before we got kicked out of the pool. He used to live by the dumpster there when he first got back from Iraq.”

Edgar does an underwater handstand and comes back up, squeezing his nose and wiping his eyes. “This cupcake place near the pool complex forgot to lock its back door one night and I stole a bunch of flour from them. I bagged and sold it under the street name Tontin.”

“Whoa. No one tried to get their money back?”

“Nah, I cut it with bath salts. I only sold to slumming hipsters, they never knew the difference.”

Gretchen raises her eyebrows. “Oh shit, did anybody die?”

Edgar stills, momentarily worried. “I don’t think so.”

“If you do a small enough amount, you would probably get a little high, maybe a nosebleed, or violent, but you wouldn’t _die_.” Lindsay pats Edgar on the arm reassuringly. “I’ve heard. A friend of mine did it. You wouldn’t know her, Gretch.”

“Is that why they kicked us out of the pool?”

“No, they kicked us out because the little kids think I’m the pool ghost. _That_ started one night when—”

“Edgar, did you guys bring dessert? Like flan or something?” Lindsay interrupts. “I need something sweet.”

Gretchen grabs her phone and checks her messages. Nothing from work or her clients, which surprises her and would’ve been incredible had it not been for the actual message in the green bubble. Vanessa and Fred. Coming to visit. Great. She immediately starts constructing a cover in case Jimmy asks.

“Hey, where did Jimmy go?” Edgar asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe he went to the bathroom. I’ll go find him.”

“Bring back more booze!” Lindsay shouts after her.

She finds him in Ty’s bedroom, holding an MTV Movie Award with a blank look. When he sees her, he doesn’t budge and his expression changes only slightly, into something smaller, meaner.

“What are the odds that the sequel to—” he peers at the base of the golden popcorn statuette and reads with exaggerated slowness. “ _Objects in Motion_ is something pithy like _Remains in Motion_? Ooh, what about: _An Unbalanced Force_? Or does that sound too prestige-y? Or a Star Wars film?”

Gretchen takes the award from his hands and puts it back next to yet another Buddha head statue.

“So this is Ty’s house?”

“Yup.”

“Is that who you were on the phone with before?”

She shakes her head no. “His personal assistant. I called to see if he was in town.”

“And he is not.”

“Nope. At the Singapore premiere of something or other.”

“And you brought us all here.”

Gretchen nods.

“And fellated me in his meditation corner.”

She shrugs and opens a drawer containing a half-full prescription bottle of Xanax and a Fitbit. Gretchen pockets both and casts a furtive glance in Jimmy’s direction. He is grinning.

“I’m not fucking you in his bed.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to. Though would it be poor form if I pissed in his shoes?” His eyes widen gleefully.

Gretchen laughs. “Out.”

He saunters out ahead of her, stopping at the doors to the yard and grabbing her by the waist.

“So do you have to attend to some publicist nightmare?” he murmurs between maulings. “Was it Shitstain or Honey Nutz?”

“I wish. It’s my parents, they want to see me this weekend.”

“You have parents?” Jimmy turns his head and narrows his eyes.

“Yeah. Vanessa and Fred.” She gulps. Shit. Did she say that out loud? What the fuckity fuck fuck fuck. “Yeah. They want me to fly out and see them. Just like that. Not like I’m busy or anything. Isn't that bananas? I’m totes unprepared. Thank god we’re not those meet-the-parents type people. I mean,” Gretchen faux-retches into her hand.

Jimmy crosses his arms and frowns. She frowns back.

“They’re dicks. I’m not excited. Help?” she adds weakly. That was the truth, the jagged white-hot flash of shame _truth_. He takes her hand and squeezes it and the action calms her down so fast she laugh-exhales her relief.

From outside some Taylor Swift song plays and she knows it’s Lindsay blaring it from her iPhone and Gretchen can already hear Jimmy’s inevitable rant about _that_ in her head. Her and Jimmy link arms like a couple of olds and Gretchen snorts at Lindsay’s water dancing. She doesn’t take a picture, she doesn’t check her email. She just is. Laughing and sunburnt and stupid on a failed Sunday Funday turned regular great day.

She can’t keep this up. Gretchen doesn’t do this type of thing. It feels like she’s barreling down a cliff at a million miles an hour and no matter how much she tries to convince herself to enjoy the pretty view, the sight of the birds flying alongside, the ground is getting closer and closer and— 


	6. Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Gretchen Cutler is trouble and Jimmy has always been drawn to trouble. She is a composite. A copy of a copy, another variation on type. His type, to be exact. Beautiful, selfish, soul-crushing, a contradiction. Thank you, Linda Patel, with your glossy braided hair and perfectly ironed uniform, for that stellar hand job behind the library. You created a monster._
> 
> or Jimmy Shive-Overly reflects on a small lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I'd love to take credit for Jimmy's article on Great-Grandfather Baldemar, that idea and the details of the man's wild life are from Stephen Falk's original script for the Pilot.
> 
> Trigger warning for Ableist language.
> 
> Thank you to: 
> 
> [machaswicket](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket) for a quick grammar beta read and help with that pesky past perfect.
> 
> [wagamiller](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wagamiller/pseuds/wagamiller/works) for again making sure Jimmy stayed English.
> 
> and finally, to [mysilverylining](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverLining2k6/works) for seeing this thing home.

BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS

The bar blinks for a fucking eternity.

He’s got nothing. No words, no plan, no erection (a self-soothing wank was not on the agenda today, sadly) only the dull, dizzying sense that he may have properly mucked things up with Gretchen this time.

Jimmy had tried to write a song last night and he had; a terrible one, about love. Which, in itself, wasn’t so strange. All songs about love were inherently terrible. They have to be, because to write about that madness, you’d have to lose the part of your brain that understands reason. You have to be stupid. And he was stupid. _Is_ stupid. But not in love. Just willing to let himself imagine he could be.

He is not the sort of person that believes in regret. His father, an oft-sozzled, taciturn bastard who’d named his only son after a shit footballer on account of a bet, had taught Jimmy fatalism well. No matter what you do, you can’t undo a mistake—it’s meant to happen. So keep trudging on and shut up about it. That became his mantra. JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT. And that is exactly what he plans to do.

But even as he thinks this, splayed out on his living room couch, he's distracted with thoughts of Gretchen. The long slope of her nose, how he can read her mind by the shapes her lips make as she thinks things over. Her perfume, the little earrings she favors. Those eyes of hers, warmer than you’d think and sad, always a little sad. Like Dylan _and_ New Wave. Adulthood and adolescence. Jimmy is romanticizing things again, he can’t help it. He’s a writer, he’s supposed to see things as more than what they are. He has to create a story. And what are they without a story? Two horrible people who couldn’t make it work.

Work will take Jimmy out of it, it usually does. He’s going out of town for a week. GQ wants him to interview an up and coming English actor on location in Cadiz, and as much as he abhors the thought of being stuck making conversation with film people and Spaniards, having oily dinners at midnight, there is the beach and the lurid promise of sex with someone he'll never see again. So he’d said yes. Because even if it’s a disaster, at least it’s a distraction. Trade one misery for another—the salient, idiotic way of the world.

Jimmy’s stomach growls.

“I’m hungry,” he says out loud. No one makes him anything. Eventually he burns some toast.

The past week had been a nightmare from start to finish. After Edgar’s primer on making barbecue sauce from a ketchup base, he’d gotten horribly drunk and woken up in the living room around two in the afternoon, his mouth like the arse of a squirrel getting over dysentery. The cooking smells had simultaneously tempted him and made him want to fling himself head first into the toilet.

Jimmy’d slimed his way over to the dining table. A plate had clattered in front of him. Then, a fork. No knife. He shuts his eyes, wincing at the memory.

_Edward, his long, hangdog, face creased in something like worry, hovers there, waiting. “It’s Chipotle Pork Soft Tacos. I used the slow cooker.”_

_Jimmy frowns but takes his first bite. It is delicious. He frowns some more. “Since when do I have a slow cooker?”_

_“Since always.”_

_“Really?”_

_“Maybe it’s Becca’s and she never took it?”_

_“Huh.” Jimmy takes another bite. It is marvelous and he hates Edgar for it. “Did you check it for traces of strychnine?”_

_“No.” Edgar’s eyes dart nervously to the cooker, the cupboard, then the window, before settling on the phone._

_“Oh, relax, you idiot. Becca’s too stupid to poison anyone on purpose. She’d do it accidentally with one of her horrid holiday recipes.”_

_“Okay.” Edgar sits down and wrings his hand under the table. Jimmy can usually tell when it’s his regular batshit craziness or when he’s being a moron but he’s at a loss here._

_“What is the matter? And where is your plate? Are you poisoning me?”_

_“No! Nothing. I ate.”_

_Edgar jiggles his leg and then, worrisomely, smiles. The smile wavers and flatlines._

_“Okay,” he says finally, with all the gravity of a nun in the Himalayas._

_“Goody, here we go. Well. Spit it out. Oh, for pete’s sake, can I eat any meal without drama? Can I? Is it possible?”_

_“I read that article you wrote about my great-grandfather Baldemar.”_

_Jimmy isn’t expecting that. He stops chewing. When he swallows it goes down like a marble. “It’s not finished. And how—”_

_“Are all those things true? He slept with Helen Keller?”_

_“Ummm. Technically it was an affair.”_

_“He trained hammerhead sharks? And dueled with the President of Mexico?”_

_“Challenged the President of Mexico to a duel. Didn’t actually do it.” Jimmy sighs. “No one’s buying it yet. You shouldn’t have read it. I’m going to do a rewrite—”_

_Edgar launches himself into his arms and kisses him like a sheepdog._

_“Get off of me, you fucking lunatic!”_

_His unasked-for roommate hugs him fiercely for an uncomfortably long amount of time. Then lets him go abruptly, wiping his eyes._

_“Edgar. It’s not very good—”_

_“You’ve taught me something I never knew. Jimmy, you really care about things. You. You are a good person.”_

_“Ugh, god, Edgar. DO not turn this into the scene in Forrest Gump where the retard and the cripple tell each other that they’ll love each other forever.”_

_Edgar does that thing where he laugh-cries and Jimmy wants to hide under the couch. The minutes tick by and he knows this because an entire Santigold song plays in the kitchen. Not really the greatest soundtrack to awkward emotional outbursts from deranged Latin men._

_Said deranged Latin man covers his face with his hands and straightens up. “I know I’m not supposed to talk about her. But this is because of Gretchen. You wouldn’t have done that without her. She’s the one who showed it to me. She said you wanted me to know about my great-grandfather. You need to talk to her.”_

_Jimmy’s irritation quickly turns to white-knuckled fork wielding._

_“Shut up. You don’t know her. She’s not some do-gooder princess. She’s awful and selfish. And when I made jokes about you, she laughed. Do you understand that, you buffoon? Take your romantic nattering somewhere else, please.”_

_He goes back to eating his food and avoids looking at what is sure to be Edgar’s kicked-dog look. Edgar goes into his room and doesn’t come out until Jimmy tells him that they’re going for drinks. He leaves that night after their tiff at the bar and doesn’t tell Jimmy where he's going. Jimmy hasn’t seen him since._

Jimmy knows now that Edgar was just trying to help but it infuriated him that he even thought to try. Jimmy Shive-Overly isn’t a sad person. He’s not a brooder, not anymore. (JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT) He’d been with loads of women since Becks and they all left and he couldn’t be bothered. None of them meant anything.

That's how it was supposed to have been with Gretchen. She wasn’t supposed to have stayed. He certainly didn’t ask her to.

He should’ve never called her, he should’ve let her keep his car, but it was her words, that venomous yet vulnerable diatribe in his living room that had utterly charmed him. Any stranger can be beautiful when you don’t know what they’re made of. It takes someone special to skip past the moment of disillusionment straight into the truth of things and let themselves be seen for what they really are.

Gretchen Cutler is trouble and Jimmy has always been drawn to trouble. She is a composite of everything he likes. A copy of a copy, another variation on type. His type, to be exact. Beautiful, selfish, soul-crushing, a contradiction. Thank you, Linda Patel, with your glossy braided hair and perfectly ironed uniform, for that stellar hand job behind the library. You created a monster.

And yet. He misses her. Gretchen. He’d become unerringly fond of the worried way she’d look at him after affection. As if she was sorry that she meant it.

They’d fucked outside once, outside his front door, obliterated on whiskey and laughter. They had been looking for a necklace she was sure she lost and they may have been taking a shower and gone looking without getting dressed. The stars had shone above them through the smog, and her hair was in his mouth when all he wanted was her kiss, and she’d ridden him with their hands interlocked. She has beautiful hands. Almost as lovely as her feet. She’d thrown her head back and said I love you as she moved and he’d gone blind—white-spark-meteor-shower-behind-the-eyes blind.

The next morning, she angled her jaw as she bit into Edgar’s nutty breakfast nonsense and, after talking about how drunk she’d been for way too long, had asked Jimmy if she’d said anything stupid the night before. He'd been himself for a moment. Smirked. Chewed. Made her wait.  _Almost_ said something cutting. _Almost_ made fun of her for being that person, the kind of moron that says I love you when they climax to someone who, for all intents and purposes, was a complete stranger. The kind of person that could love someone like him. But instead he’d looked straight into those soft, sad eyes and said, “No. You didn’t.”

She’d looked relieved but also, a little disappointed

BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS

The cursor blinks.

That’s it. Jimmy cracks his neck. He hits backspace until it’s all gone again. He’s going to that barbecue. He will talk to Gretchen. He will say whatever he needs to in order to get her back. Even if it’s lies. Because they might not stay that way, the lies. They might be true in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Follow me on tumblr: @ghostcat3000


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